Love Flightly, one of the best apps ever. Beautiful design + incredibly useful info.

Flighty is poorly designed.

It’s one of those slick apps designed to superficially look nice without actually being well-thought-out. That’s not what design is or should mean; that’s just aesthetics.

Case in point: one of the most important pieces of data for a flight, its duration, is displayed in the tiniest type size on the flight info display pane, in light grey text on a slightly darker grey background. It’s bordering on illegible.

It also doesn’t surface boarding time (or countdown to same), which is the single most important piece of data a flight tracker can give you.

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exidy 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> one of the most important pieces of data for a flight, its duration

Flighty is all about getting you to the airport in time for your flight, so the most important pieces of information are things like departure times, connection times, delay information, terminal and boarding gate. These are prioritised in the interface.

The flight duration is set when you book the flight and it's not going to change, there is no reason to prioritise this.

> It also doesn’t surface boarding time

I think this would be useful but difficult data to get. Airlines sometimes will push boarding announcements to their own apps but I doubt they would agree to feed Flighty.

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yosito 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In my extensive travel experience, more than half the time the boarding time listed at the gate isn't even correct.

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ZeWaka 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Boarding is hard because it's at the discretion of the airlines, yeah. Departure time is easier because of https://www.fly.faa.gov/edct/showEDCT

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exidy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Departure time is easier because of https://www.fly.faa.gov/edct/showEDCT

If you're in the US!

	▲	ZeWaka 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		True. I think you'd have to scrape it from sites that expose it or pay for an API for a country like the UK.

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chrony3705 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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rconti 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think the design is great; my only gripe is it's awful on the iPad mini. But so are Apple apps. They think it makes sense for the side drawer (in portrait mode) to cover half the screen. Which is especially insane in apps with maps where the drawer COVERS THE "YOU ARE HERE" DOT.

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zeroonetwothree 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why is duration important? Surely you already knew what it was when you booked and it's not like it changes. I can't say that I've ever wanted to double check the duration of my flight.

	▲	friendzis 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Knowing when I land, especially if there are any disturbances, is probably THE most important piece of information with regards to a flight. I have already planned my airport arrival, at least for the first leg, and the worst scenario is I have to stare at a screen/book for a bit longer. If the landing is delayed I might need to make amendments to the plans for the rest of the day.

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oslem an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I use their widgets more than the app itself. They display the most important information I need well imo.

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nemothekid 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>one of the most important pieces of data for a flight, its duration,

What is your use case for Flighty, and why would this information be important at all?